Category: Linux

The Pen is mightier than the megabyte!

Paul8 Replies

Mass storage device for PC. USB flash drives. Image via Wikipedia

As technicians we have way to many pen drives!

If you are like me, you probably have several different USB Flash drives laying around like I do.  I usually have special ones for special projects.   You’d probably have one for Virus removal and another one for fixing Hard Drives like Spinrite.   A few years ago, I would have 6 to 10 Pen drives for just those special occasions.   I’d even have one for all my saved games and other important files that I might need.

One Pen Drive to rule them all, One Pen Drive to find them,
One Pen Drive to bring them all and in the darkness bind them!

So I have found some great programs to create one massive Pen Drive so I don’t have to have so many USB Flash Drives laying around on the desk!  I figured I would go about talking about the best way to pack your USB drive with all that valuable information and have it at your finger tips in case of the some problems with the system.

  • YUMI – Multiboot USB Creator — This is what you will need to pack that USB with all your favorite ISO‘s.    The only requirement is the size of the Pendrive.   If you don’t have a big enough Pen drive then you will ultimately have to split them into small pen drives.    I have several different useful programs on my pen drive.  The only down side is that it is Windows only.   I would love them to make it for Linux or even OS X but It is still darn useful.
  • WSUS Offline Upate —  This is darn useful program.   If you ever needed to update a Windows without being online this is for you.  It will download the files and then make an ISO.   Once you have the ISO you can Yumi to put it on the Pen Drive.  Good news about this is you can keep using Yumi to replace the ISO every month and it doesn’t take much time.   Just don’t delete the files that WSUS downloads or you will have to redownload them again.  Just keep those files safe and all you will have to do is download the updates each month and then copy the new ISO to Yumi.
  • Puppy Linux — Is by far my Favorite little Linux Distro because it will allow me to save my personal settings in any computer I use and thus when I come back to the system with Puppy, I do not have to redo anything I did before.
  • Ultimate Boot CD — Is another great little ISO to install in the Pen Drive.   If your having problems with the system.   This will let you test the system in ways you probably never thought about doing.   Very useful for any Technician who is doing some kind of problem solving.
  • System rescue CD — If you ever needed to rescue the system from a variety of problems like partition problems or hard drive crashes.   This is goo for that resource.  This Distro contains many different tools for Networks, file restoration and Many more.
  • Spinrite —  The is obviously the best tool there is because it will already come as an ISO and all you will need to do is us YUMI to put it on the USB drive.   Once on the drive you have a plug and hard drive repair program for any occasion.

I pretty much gave you a baseline of ISO and programs to use to make your Ultimate Pen drive for when you might need them.  I won’t go on to much longer because I know your itching to try these programs and find even more programs to install onto your USB Flash Drive.   I will say if you search long and hard you could find some really good treasures to make it even better and worth while.   I like having only a few Pen drives than having a hand full of them. Don’t you??

Have a Good day, See you real Soon!

 

Paul Sylvester

 

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Adobe PDF Zero Day Warnings : Experts agree

Paul

All the Security experts online are talking about The 2 Zero Day Adobe Vulnerabilities:

[ad#cricket-right-ez]As you can see this seems to be one of those Adobe problems we had in the past with [intlink id=”2963″ type=”post”]Javascript[/intlink].   They seem to be having a major problem with Javascript vulnerability and the old saying is to just to disable Javascript in PDF’S again.   Adobe is calling this a Potential Adobe Reader issue and is suggesting that the users disable Javascript until this is fixed with a security update.

This is mostly affect the corporate world more than the private sector because of the fact corporate world will use PDF by sending them through emails.   I suggest installing another reader and these are all free.

Be advised the vulnerabilities affects Linux, Windows, and Macintosh systems.  This will most likely mean that even Macintoshes could be used to [intlink id=”2173″ type=”post”]create even more botnets[/intlink] and will need to disable there Javascript until this issue is fixed or maybe they would like to find another reader themselves.  This also goes for Linux users but I have not heard of anything in the wild yet.

Don’t forget to install some [intlink id=”2205″ type=”page”]free Anti-virus and Free Firewalls[/intlink] to help protect your system from becoming a botnet.

Facebook Goes Phishing again

Paul

In one of my Previous articles about the Koobface Worm, I talked about the way they were infecting the systems and what you need not do.

It seems that Trend Micro has seen an even more rise in people downloading the WORM_KOOBFACE.AZ and Seems to be on the RISE. This is all done with a Social engineering and Has had some attempts before with this little worm on Facebook.

[ad#ad2-right]After your Infected with this new Variant, it searches for cookies and Sends out a message to people from:
* facebook.com
* hi5.com
* friendster.com
* myyearbook.com
* myspace.com
* bebo.com
* tagged.com
* netlog.com
* fubar.com
* livejournal.com

This seems to be a social engineering Nightmare for these websites and as yet are unsure what else it does but it says the same thing it did before by saying “This is a Video of You on the Street.” Which is bogus but none the less people click and think they have to download a codec or update their Flash. Social Engineering is on the rise and will be taken seriously. You should read the full report from Trend on what it does but you also should have an anti-virus and Firewall installed to prevent this from happening in the first place. The only true way of preventing this is not to be fooled, you should NEVER Download from a site you don’t know or trust. See all the Facebook articles for more information.

What is a Virus and Why do I have one

Paul2 Replies

After seeing more and more the updates coming from the net.  I wanted to talk about what a Computer Virus or Trojan is and how you get it.   So how did  you could of gotten a Virus in the first place.   So here are some information to consider:

The vulnerability of operating systems to viruses

So what does that mean to you?  Most of the times when you get a virus you have a vulnerability in some place in your Operating system and it is either something that has not be known by Microsoft, Apple, and Linux or is know as a Zero-day Exploit. [ad#ad2-right]

A zero-day (or zero-hour) attack or threat is a computer threat that tries to exploit unknown, undisclosed or patchfree computer application vulnerabilities. The term Zero Day is also used to describe unknown or Zero day viruses.

[Via Wikipedia]

This is one of the most used because if it is an unknown exploit by the Operating System creators then they have a longer to us the exploit.  Most of the time hackers like to use this because that means there is a possibility of finding even more vectors to infect other systems.  You see if they can get on one system they can then find ways to get on other systems.

In the Old days, you’d ask

How Did I Get This Virus, Anyway?

You get a virus when you copy infected files to your computer, then activate the code inside by running the infected application or opening an infected document. How you copy the infected files is irrelevant: Viruses don’t care if you get them as an e-mail attachment, a download, or via a shared floppy disk, though e-mail attachments are the most prevalent (and easiest) mode of transport.

[via PcWorld] (Dated Oct 13, 2000 11:00 pm)

That was before hackers wanted to infect for more personal gains.   There is a list of things that hackers want to get when they Infect a system and it is usually very few things.   In the Old days they wanted the fame but now they want money and to take control over the internet.  They usually want to infect for Money or to have computers become botnets.  Now We aren’t talking about the Movie, I Robot.   Once a system becomes a bot it doesn’t think for itself but follows a line of command from the Command and Control center.  So lets say we have  several hundred bots on one net, and the hacker blacked mailed a server saying if they didn’t pay up they’d get DoS attacked.  With enough bots going to one site at one time can slow or even bring down a site, that is how A hacker sometimes uses a virus or trojan to get into a system.

Viruses & Trojans try to Avoid detection

So you have a virus, it wouldn’t do a virus any good to be detected right after getting onto a system.   More and more, viruses are trying to avoid being seen and heard.  Most hackers who program are wanting to infect more than one system so they have to make really sure that you don’t find out your infected.    So with that said there are several ways  and I won’t try to explain them because I think the link talks about it better than I could.   It however will give people something to think about.

In the next few days there will be another post on How you will be able to figure out if you have a virus.  I had to talk about this first so people could understand how to figure out if you have in the next post.  So stay tuned for more